Letter 9: VARIAE, APPENDIX, LETTER 9

9. Decree of King Theoderic. To the master of the world, the protector and restorer of liberty, the Senate of the city of Rome, Flavius Theodericus, king. [1] A representation concerning the welfare of the church has reached us, Conscript Fathers, and the ordinance of your sacred assembly, pleasing to our clemency, has struck our hearts. And although, after the venerable synod, your ordinance of judgment alone would suffice for decrees of this kind, nevertheless, in view of your consultation in this matter, we have given a response by the present pronouncements: that it be lawful for no prelate [antistes, bishop] of any church to enter, under any form of alienation, into a contract concerning the ownership [of church property]. They may plainly grant its usufruct to whomever they wish, with equity preserved. For property conveyed [to the church], owed to all the strangers of the clergy or to the establishment of the church, ought not to be frustrated by the will of the bishop alone. For what is so profane as that the judgment of the donor should be violated in this respect, while private persons claim for themselves, as a usufruct of the property, the contract over that which each man wished to belong to the church? Therefore, if anyone with criminal audacity shall presume upon what is forbidden, and desires to hold the property beyond the usufruct, with the bishop or clergy granting it, let the alienated property be reclaimed at once, together with its fruits, by the venerable prelate. And so forth. Given on the fifth day before the Ides of March [11 March], at Ravenna, in the consulship of Venantius, vir clarissimus [most illustrious man].

VIIII. PRAECEPTUM REGIS THEODERICI. [1] Domitori orbis, praesuli et reparatori libertatis senatui urbis Romae Flavius Theodericus rex. Pervenit ad nos, patres conscripti, de ecclesiae missa utilitate suggestio et nostrae mansuetudinis grata sacri coetus vestri ordinatio corda pulsavit. et licet post venerabilem synodum ad huiusmodi decreta vestri sufficiat ordinatio sola iudicii, tamen pro vestra huiusmodi praesentibus oraculis dedimus consultatione responsum, ut nulli fas sit ecclesiae cuiuslibet antistiti sub qualibet alienatione de proprietate contractus. usumfructum plane suum cui salva voluerint aequitate praestabunt. neque enim frustrari [debet] sola pontificis voluntate vel cleri peregrinis debita omnibus vel statui ecclesiae res delata. quid enim tam profanum est quam ut in hac largientis parte violetur arbitrium, dum quod ad ecclesiam quisque voluit pertinere, privatae sibi vindicent pro usufructu rei personae contractum. ergo si quis scelestis ausibus interdicta praesumpserit et ultra usumfructum rem tenere cupit episcopo vel clero largiente, alienata res protinus cum fructibus a venerando praesule vindicentur. et cetera. Data V idus Martias Ravenna Venantio v. c. consule.